Tevis' book also inspired a number of pool players active in the late 1950s and early 1960s to claim to be the inspirations for the characters of "Fast Eddie" and "Minnesota Fats."

The best known of these false claimants was an overweight man named Rudolph Wanderone, who appropriated the name "Minnesota Fats" and began collecting billiard endorsement deals and netting appearances on televised matches with Willie Mosconi, Utley Puckett and Luther Lassiter, among others.

Wanderone, particularly, frustrated the creator of "Minnesota Fats."

Tevis insisted, Kowars said, "that later editions of The Hustler carry a preface that said 'I made up Minnesota Fats just as Walt Disney made up Donald Duck.'" He insisted that any later publications say that Rudolf Wanderone was a fraud and that Minnesota Fats was a figment of his imagination ... in the world we live in today, Walter would have probably sued (Wanderone) and won money."

When Wanderone died in 1996, Kowars published an article in Billiards Magazine reiterating Tevis' disclaimers regarding the bogus "Minnesota Fats."